No, I will not apologize

It doesn’t look like much, but it’s getting there. Think of this as a working draft.

Let’s get one thing straight: I despise apologizing for not making something a priority.

“I’m so sorry I haven’t called!”

“I’m sorry I didn’t get around to doing that.”

People do it because they feel like they’ve let you down, so it is done with the best of intentions. But the apology is hollow because it’s not an apology at all. It’s an excuse.

I have plenty of excuses. But if you’re after an apology, I’m not going to offer a hollow one. Mostly because I know I don’t mean it.

It’s the giant pink horse in the room: Book 2 hasn’t come out as promised in Spring 2016. And I’m not sorry despite feeling like I’m disappointing a lot of readers. I hate disappointing people, but an apology now would only further disappointment in myself because it wouldn’t be genuine.

How did I make this discovery about my wrongness? Well, June 2015, my husband and I embarked on a crazy journey from suburbia to building an off-grid homestead. This sounded like a lot of work back in early 2015, but I’m used to hard work and it didn’t scare me.

I might have been scared if I had known how much work it entailed. Not just hard work, but creative work. I’m a fairly good laborer for my short stature and I consider myself of adequate intelligence, but driving every nail into a barn, lifting huge 6×6 beams, and determining the rise over run for the roof pitch has tested both those qualities. For a journalist, I’m good at math. For a builder, I can barely understand how to do this stuff.

So, dear reader (to steal an address from Stephen King), Book 2 is not done. It’s not even that close to being done. I finished the draft for Book 1 in 60 days and then it took me about nine months to edit. I haven’t even finished the first draft for Book 2, and when I do, who knows how long before Book 2 will be finished editing?

I hate disappointing you, but I’m still not sorry. I’m building my dream life out on the homestead. If you’d like to follow our progress, you can search for Oldfield Homestead on Facebook. I’d be happy for you to look in on us there.

The book will come, and when it does, I promise, you will know what happened to Finn and Daisy (I really left you all hanging there!). Please don’t be mad. I have too much respect for you to rush it or to not have my heart in it or my attention divided. Thank you for your patience. I will not waste it.